We're talking here about passenger rail, not freight rail. And when it comes to passenger rail, the US is terrible by the standards of other developed countries.
But this fellah seemed to have that part figured out: Bike to the train station, and take the bike on the train. That part seems straight-forward. The train stations were near-enough to where they wanted to start, and near-enough to where they wanted to be.
The problems they lament seem to revolve chiefly around the specifics of taking the bike on a train, and the limited schedule of the train, and the lack of adhesion to that schedule.
Those problems wouldn't be improved if the vastness of the US were reduced, would they?
Where I live in the Netherlands the train quite literally stops in front of my door, as in my building that is ~50 meters from the train station where I can take a train every 10 minutes (15 on weekends) to any other city in the country, and even outside the country to Germany or France.
I'm even planning a Eurotrip by train this summer with some mates, I'd say the distances here are comparable to get from NL to PL for example.
And besides, how is it that the US is "too wide" for trains to work, but apparently building an equivalent highway system is perfectly possible? China is also a massive country, yet they have incredible passenger train options to get cross country.
A self-driving car can stop 2 meters outside your house on an arbitrary schedule. That's going to be the competition with trains in the very near future.
Not sure what you mean by the last bit - the US already has that highway system, and the local roads serving the last mile, because that last mile infrastructure already has to exist to get from public transit to your house.
China doesn't have the exact same problem because so much of the country lives in dense wall-to-wall housing, which sucks no matter how you spin it if you like having any kind of space to yourself.
The Brightline in Florida exists, as does the Acela on the East Coast. These things are entirely possible in the US, we just don't seem to want them enough.
This is an extremely simplistic view. For instance, the US moves more of its freight (by percentage) than all western European countries except Switzerland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usag...
We're talking here about passenger rail, not freight rail. And when it comes to passenger rail, the US is terrible by the standards of other developed countries.
Passengers are not freight. And freight is one of the reasons US railways suck for passengers.
Moving people by train in the US makes about as much sense as delivering pizzas by barge.
4 replies →
Freight is better. Passengers don’t belong on trains.
1 reply →
The US is a very big, very spread out place. I'm not sure which country has trains that take you directly to your front door.
It is indeed a very big place.
But this fellah seemed to have that part figured out: Bike to the train station, and take the bike on the train. That part seems straight-forward. The train stations were near-enough to where they wanted to start, and near-enough to where they wanted to be.
The problems they lament seem to revolve chiefly around the specifics of taking the bike on a train, and the limited schedule of the train, and the lack of adhesion to that schedule.
Those problems wouldn't be improved if the vastness of the US were reduced, would they?
Near-enough is not strong competition with as-close-as-possible.
1 reply →
Where I live in the Netherlands the train quite literally stops in front of my door, as in my building that is ~50 meters from the train station where I can take a train every 10 minutes (15 on weekends) to any other city in the country, and even outside the country to Germany or France.
I'm even planning a Eurotrip by train this summer with some mates, I'd say the distances here are comparable to get from NL to PL for example.
And besides, how is it that the US is "too wide" for trains to work, but apparently building an equivalent highway system is perfectly possible? China is also a massive country, yet they have incredible passenger train options to get cross country.
A self-driving car can stop 2 meters outside your house on an arbitrary schedule. That's going to be the competition with trains in the very near future.
Not sure what you mean by the last bit - the US already has that highway system, and the local roads serving the last mile, because that last mile infrastructure already has to exist to get from public transit to your house.
China doesn't have the exact same problem because so much of the country lives in dense wall-to-wall housing, which sucks no matter how you spin it if you like having any kind of space to yourself.
1 reply →
Recently, on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47815395
There are lots of potential high-traffic corridors, and the US is still incapable of serving them.
Hard to find an unserved corridor where train makes more sense than plane or car.
5 replies →
The Brightline in Florida exists, as does the Acela on the East Coast. These things are entirely possible in the US, we just don't seem to want them enough.
14 replies →